FILM

Australia 2011 115 mins Dir: Justin Kurzel Starring: Daniel Henshall, Lucas Pittaway, Louise Harris

Rather like last year's 'Animal Kingdom', 'Snowtown' puts on screen a true story set in an Australian underclass milieu that's far removed from the familiar touristy images presented by the likes of Baz Luhrmann. In fact, this might just rank as the most bleak and squalid drama yet to emerge from Down Under, being based on the career of Australia's most notorious serial killer.

The setting is detritus-strewn Snowtown, a grim northern suburb of Adelaide, in the mid-1990s. Things aren't going well for church-going, poverty-stricken, chain-smoking single mother Elizabeth Harvey (Harris), not least because her latest boyfriend is a kiddy-fiddler who's been abusing her youngest sons. The focus is on 16-year-old Jamie (Pittaway), who yearns for escape from this hopeless life. One morning, bearded, chummy John Bunting (Henshall) appears at the breakfast table. He quickly becomes a mentor and surrogate father figure to Jamie, but… you know where this is going right?

The only professional actor in the cast, Henshall gives a thoroughly convincing performance as the bigoted, manipulative, occasionally charming psycho who homes in on and grooms impressionable waifs and strays until they're inescapably drawn in to his world of torture and murder. Brilliant early scenes show him whipping up an anti-paedo lynch mob mentality among the local boozers'n'losers, who little suspect that this is not just self-righteous bravado. Lucas Pittaway gives a strong performance as Jamie, but you may be forgiven for not being entirely convinced by his transformation, which isn't helped by a needlessly convoluted narrative. First-time director Justin Kurzel grew up in the area where the murders took place and skilfully walks the tightrope between depicting the gruesome events exploitatively and sanitising them, though sensitive dog lovers should perhaps be warned that 'Snowtown' achieves 'Tyrannosaur' levels of offscreen pooch abuse. (Robin Askew)

website www.snowtownthemovie.com/

Opens: November 18

Copyright Robin Askew 2011